JAXARTES, IAXARTES (8 'lažáprns), the | ancient writers under the name Jaxartes. Some, river of Central Asia which now bears the name of Syr-Daria, or Yellow River (Daria is the generic Tartar name for all rivers, and Syr="yellow"), and which, watering the barren steppes of the Kirghiz-Cossacks, was known to the civilised world in the most remote ages.

indeed, confounded the Jaxartes and the Tanaïs, and that purposely, as will be seen hereafter. A few have confounded it with the Oxus; while all, without exception, were of opinion that both the Jaxartes and the Oxus discharged their waters into the Caspian, and not into the Sea of Aral. It seems, at first sight, curious, to those who know, the true position of these rivers, that the Greeks, in describing their course, and determining the distance of their respective "embouchures," should have taken the Sea of Aral for the Caspian, and that their mistake should have been repeated up to very recent times. Von Humboldt (Asie Centrale, vol. ii. pp. 162297)- -to whose extensive inquiry we owe an invadigest of the views entertained respecting the geography of the Caspian and Oxus by classical, Arabian, and European writers and travellers, along with the latest investigations of Russian scientific and military men — arrives at these conclusions respecting the ancient junction of the Aral, Oxus, and Caspian:

1st. That, at a period before the historical era, but nearly approaching to those revolutions which preceded it, the great depression of Central Asiathe concavity of Turan may have been one large interior sea, connected on the one hand with the Euxine, on the other hand, by channels more or less broad, with the Icy Sea, and the Balkash and its adjoining lakes.

The expats of Cyrus and Alexander the Great have inscribed its name in history many centuries before our aera. If we are to believe the traditionary statements about Cyrus, the left bank of this river formed the N. limit of the vast dominion of that conqueror, who built a town, deriving its name from the founder [CYRESCHATA], upon its banks; and it was upon the right bank that he lost his life in battle with Tomyris, Queen of the Massagetae.luable Herodotus (i. 201-216), who is the authority for this statement, was aware of the existence of the Syr-Daria; and although the name Jaxartes, which was a denomination adopted by the Greeks and followed by the Romans, does not appear in his history, yet the Araxes of Herodotus can be no other than the actual Syr, because there is no other great river in the country of the Massagetae. Much has been written upon the mysterious river called Araxes by Herodotus; M. De Guignes, Fosse, and Gatterer, suppose that it is the same as the Oxus or AmouDaria; M. De la Nauze sees in it the Araxes of Armenia; while Bayer, St. Croix, and Larcher, conceive that under this name the Volga is to be understood. The true solution of the enigma seems to be that which has been suggested by D'Anville, that the Araxes is an appellative common to the Amou, the Armenian Aras, the Volga, and the Syr. (Comp. ARAXES, p. 188; Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscr. vol. xxxvi. pp. 69-85; Heeren, Asiat. Nations, vol. ii. p. 19, trans.) From this it may be concluded, that Herodotus had some vague acquaintance with the Syr, though he did not know it by name, but confounded it with the Araxes; nor was Aristotle more successful, as the Syr, the Volga, and the Don, have been recognised in the description of the Araxes given in his Meteorologics (i. 13. § 15), which, it must be recollected, was written before Alexander's expedition to India. (Comp. Ideler, Meteorologia Vet. Graecor. et Rom. ad l. c., Berol, 1832; St. Croix, Examen Critique des Hist. d'Alex. p. 703.)

A century after Herodotus, the physical geography of this river-basin became well known to the Greeks, from the expedition of Alexander to Bactria and Sogdiana. In B. c. 329, Alexander reached the Jaxartes, and, after destroying the seven towns or fortresses upon that river the foundation of which was ascribed to Cyrus, founded a city, bearing his own name, upon its banks, ALEXANDREIA ULTIMA (Khojend). (Q. Curt. vii. 6; Arrian, Anab. iv. 1. § 3.)

After the Macedonian conquest, the Syr is found in all the ancient geographers under the form Jaxartes: while the country to the N. of it bore the general name of Scythia, the tracts between the Syr and Amou were called Transoxiana. The Jaxartes is not properly a Greek word, it was borrowed by the Greeks from the Barbarians, by whom, as Arrian (Anab. iii. 30. § 13) asserts, it was called Orxantes ('Optávτns). Various etymologies of this name have been given (St. Croix, Examen Critique des Hist. d'Alex. § 6), but they are too uncertain to be relied on: but whatever be the derivation of the word, certain it is that the Syr appears in all

2nd. That, probably in the time of Herodotus, and even so late as the Macedonian invasion, the Aral was merely a bay or gulf of the Caspian, connected with it by a lateral prolongation, into which the Oxus flowed.

3rd. That, by the preponderance of evaporation over the supply of water by the rivers, or by diluvial deposits, or by Plutonic convulsions, the Aral and Caspian were separated, and a bifurcation of the Oxus developed, one portion of its waters continuing its course to the Caspian, the other terminating in the Aral.

4th. That the continued preponderance of evaporation has caused the channel communicating with the Caspian to dry up.

At present it must be allowed that, in the absence of more data, the existence of this great Aralo-Caspian basin within the "historic period," must be a moot point; though the geological appearances prove by the equable distribution of the same peculiar organic remains, that the tract between the Aral and the Caspian was once the bed of an united and continuous sea, and that the Caspian of the present day is the small residue of the once mighty AraloCaspian Sea.

Strabo (xi. pp. 507-517) was acquainted with the true position of this river, and has exposed the errors committed by the historians of Alexander (p. 508), who confounded the mountains of the Paropamisus-or Paropanisus, as all the good MSS. of Ptoleiny read (Asie Centrale, vol. i. pp. 114—118) - with the Caucasus, and the Jaxartes with the Tanaïs. All this was imagined with a view of exalting the glory of Alexander, so that the great conqueror might be supposed, after subjugating Asia, to have arrived at the Don and the Caucasus, the scene of the legend where Hercules unbound the chains of the fire-bringing Titan.

The Jaxartes, according to Strabo (p. 510), took its rise in the nuntains of India, and he determines it as the frontier between Sogdiana and the nomad Scy

thians (pp. 514, 517), the principal tribes of which Kachkar-Davan, a branch of the range called by the were the Sacae, Dahae, and Massagetae, and adds | Chinese the " Mountains of Heaven," and, taking a (p. 518) that its "embouchure" was, according to NW. course through the sandy steppes of KizilPatrocles, 80 parasangs from the mouth of the Oxus. Koum and Kara-Koum, unites its waters with those Pliny (vi. 18) says that the Scythians called it of the Sea of Aral, on its E. shores, at the gulf of "Silis," probably a form of the name Syr, which it Kamechlou-Bachi. [E. B. J.] now bears, and that Alexander and his soldiers JAXAMATAE (Ιαξαμάται, Ἰαξαμᾶται, Ἰξομά thought that it was the Tanaïs. It has been conjec-Ta, Ixomatae, Amm. Marc. xxii. 8. § 31; Exotured that the Alani, in whose language the word tan matae, Val. Flacc. Argonaut. vi. 144, 569) a people (Tan-aïs, Dan, Don) signified a river, may have who first appear in history during the reign of Satybrought this appellative first to the E., and then to rus III., king of Bosporus, who waged war with Tirthe W. of the Aralo-Caspiar basin, in their migra- gatao, their queen. (Polyaen. viii. 55.) The ancients tions, and thus have contributed to confirm an error attribute them to the Sarinatian stock. (Scymn. Fr. so flattering to the vanity of the Macedonian con- p. 140; Anon. Peripl. Eux. p. 2.) Pomponius Mela querors. (Asie Centrale, vol. ii. pp. 254, 291; (i. 19. § 17) states that they were distinguished by comp, Schafarik, Slav. Alt. vol. i. p. 500.) Pompo- the peculiarity of the women being as tried warriors nius Mela (iii. 5. § 6) merely states that it watered as the men. Ptolemy (v. 9) has placed them between the vast countries of Scythia and Sogdiana, and dis- the Don and Volga, which agrees well with the pocharged itself into that E. portion of the Caspian sition assigned to them by the authors mentioned which was called Scythicus Sinus. above. In the second century of our era they disappear from history. Schafarik (Slav. Alt. vol. i. p. 340), who considers the Sarmatians to belong to the Median stock, connects them with the Median word "mat ="people," as in the termination Sanromatae; but it is more probable that the Sarmatians were Slavonians. [E. B. J.]

Arrian, in recounting the capture of Cyropolis (Anab. iv. 3. § 4), has mentioned the curious fact, that the Macedonian army entered the town by the dried-up bed of the river; these desiccations are not rare in the sandy steppes of Central Asia, -as for instance, in the sudden drying up of one of the arms of the Jaxartes, known under the name of Tanghi-Daria, the account of which was first brought to Europe in 1820. (Comp. Journ. Geog. Soc. vol. xiv. pp. 333-335.)

Ptolemy (vi. 12. § 1) has fixed mathematically the sources, as well as the "embouchure," of the Jaxartes. According to him the river rises in lat. 43° and long. 125°, in the mountain district of the COMEDI (ʼn open Kwundwr, § 3: Muz-Tágh), and throws itself into the Caspian in lat. 48° and long. 970, carrying with it the waters of many affluents, the principal of which are called, the one BASCATIS (Barkaris, § 3), and the other DEMUS (Aμos, § 3). He describes it as watering three countries, that of the "Sacae," "Sogdiana," and "Scythia intra Imaum." In the first of these, upon its right bank, were found the COMARI (Kouapo) and CARATAE (Kapáτaι, vi. 13. § 3); in the second, on the left bank, the ANIESES (AVIéreis) and DREPSIANI (Ape avoi), who extended to the Oxus, the TACHORI (Taxopo), and IATII ('lário, vi. 12. § 4); in Scythia, on the N. bank of the Syr, lived the JAXAKTAE (lakáρrai), a numerous people (vi. 14. § 10), and near the "embouchure," the ARIACAE (Apiákat, vi. 14. § 13). Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii. 6. § 59), describing Central Asia, in the upper course of the Jaxartes which falls into the Caspian, speaks of two rivers, the ARAXATES and DYMAS (probably the Demus of Ptolemy), "qui per juga vallesque praecipites in campestrem planitiem decurrentes Oxiam nomine paludem efficiunt longe lateque diffusam.” This is the first intimation, though very vague, as to the formation of the Sea of Aral, and requires a more detailed examination. [OXIA PALUS.]

The obscure Geographer of Ravenna, who lived, as it is believed, about the 7th century A. D., mentions the river Jaxartes in describing Hyrcania.

"

JAʼZYGES, IAʼZYGES ('lagʊyes, Steph. B. lazyx), a people belonging to the Sarmatian stock, whose original settlements were on the Palus Maeotis. (Ptol. iii. 5. § 19; Strab. vii. p. 306; Arrian, Anab. 1, 3; Amm. Marc. xxii. 8. § 31.) They were among the barbarian tribes armed by Mithridates (Appian, Mithr. 69); during the banishment of Ovid they were found on the Danube, and in Bessarabia and Wallachia (Ep. ex Pont. i. 2, 79. iv. 7, 9, Trist. ii. 19. 1.) In A. D. 50, either induced by the rich pastures of Hungary, or forced onwards from other causes, they no longer appear in their ancient seats, but in the plains between the Lower Theiss and the mountains of Transylvania, from which they had driven out the Dacians. (Tac. Ann. xii. 29; Plin. iv. 12.) This migration, probably, did not extend to the whole of the tribe, as is implied in the surname "Metanastae;" henceforward history speaks of the Lazyges MetaNASTAE (lágʊyes oi Metaváσtai), who were the Sarmatians with whom the Romans so frequently came in collision. (Comp. Gibbon, c. xviii.) In the second century of our era, Ptolemy (iii. 7) assigns the Danube, the Theiss, and the Carpathians as the limits of this warlike tribe, and enumerates the following towns as belonging to them: · USCENUM (Ovσkevov); BormanUM or GORMANUM (Bópμavov, al. Tópμavov); ABIETA or ABINTA ('Àbinta, al. Abivтa); TRISSUM (Tpioo óv); CANDANUM (Kávdávor); PARCA (Пάрkα); РESSIUM (Пéσσiov); and PARTISCUM (HáрTIσKOV). These towns were, it would seem, constructed not by the Iazyges themselves, who lived in tents and waggons, but by the former Slave inhabitants of Hungary; and this supposition is confirmed by the fact that the names are partly Keltic and partly Slavish. Mannert and Reichard (Forbiger, vol. iii. p. 1111) have guessed at the modern representatives of these places, but Schafarik (Slav. Alt. vol. i. p. 514) is of opinion that no conclusion can be safely drawn except as to the identity of Pesth with Pessium, and of Potisije with Partiscum.

Those who wish to study the accounts given by mediaeval and modern travellers, will find much valuable information in the "Dissertation on the River Jixartes" annexed to Levchine, Hordes et Steppes ds Kirghiz-Kazaks, Paris, 1840. This same writer The lazyges lived on good terms with their neigh(pp. 53-70) has described the course of the Syr-bours on the W., the German Quadi (Tac. Hist. iii. Daria which has its source in the mountains of | 5), with whom they united for the purpose of subju

the northern tribes vanquished by Hermanric in A. D' 332-350, and that they were the same people as those mentioned by Jornandes (de Reb. Get. 3) under the corrupt form INAUNXES.

There is a monograph on this subject by Hennig (Comment de Rebus Iazygum S. Iazvingorum, Regiomont, 1812); a full and clear account of the fortunes of these peoples will be found in the German translation of the very able work of Schafarik, the historian of the Slavish races.

gating the native Slaves and resisting the power of Rome. A portion of their territory was taken from them by Decebalus, which, after Trajan's Dacian conquests, was incorporated with the Roman dominions. (Dion Cass. xlviii. 10, 11.) Pannonia and Moesia were constantly exposed to their inroads; but, A.D. 171, they were at length driven from their last holds in the province, and pushed across the Danube, by M. Aurelius. In mid-winter they returned in great numbers, and attempted to cross the frozen stream; the Romans encountered them upon the ice, and inflicted a severe defeat. (Dion Cass. lxxi. 7, 8, 16.) At a later period, as the Roman Empire hastened to its fall, it was constantly exposed to the attacks of these wild hordes, who, beaten one day, appeared the next, plundering and laying waste IBAN (16ar, Cedren. vol. ii. p. 774), a city whatever came in their way. (Amm. Marc. xvii. 12, which Cedrenus (l. c.) describes as the metropolis of 13, xxix. 6.) The word “ peace” was unknown to | Vasbouragan (μητρόπολις δὲ αὕτη τοῦ Βασπαthem. (Flor. iv. 12.) ρακάν).

In 1799 a golden dish was found with an inscription in Greek characters, now in the imperial cabinet of antiquities at Vienna, which has been referred to the lazyges. (Von Hammer, Osman. Gesch. vol. iii. p. 726.) [E. B. J.]

The name survives in the modern Ván. St. Martin, the historian of Armenia (Mém. sur l'Ar

traditions, Ván is a very ancient city, the founda-
tion of which was attributed to Semiramis. Ruined in
course of time, it was rebuilt by a king called Van,
who lived a short time before the expedition of Alex-
ander the Great, and who gave it his name; but,
having again fallen into decay, it was restored by
Vagh-Arshag (Valarsases), brother to Arsases, and
first king of Armenia of the race of the Arsasidae.
In the middle of the 4th century after Christ it was
captured by Sapor II. (Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. ix. pp.
787, 981; London Geog. Journal, vol. viii. p. 66.)
[ARTEMITA BUANA.]
[E. B. J.]

They called themselves "Sarmatae Limigantes," and were divided into two classes of freemen and slaves, "Sarmatae Liberi," "Sarmatae Servi." Am-menie, vol. i. p. 117), says that, according to native mianus Marcellinus (xvii. 13. § 1) calls the subject class"Limigantes" (a word which has been falsely explained by Limitanei "), and St. Jerome (Chron.) says that the ruling Sarmatians had the title " Arcagarantes." By a careful comparison of the accounts given by Dion Cassius, Ammianus, Jerome, and the writer of the Life of Constantine, it may be clearly | made out that the Sarmatian Iazyges, besides subjugating the Getae in Dacia and on the Lower Danube, had, by force of arms, enslaved a people distinct from the Getae, and living on the Theiss and at the foot of the Carpathians. Although the nations around them were called, both the ruling and the subject race, Sarmatians, yet the free Sarmatians were entirely distinct from the servile population in language, customs, and mode of life. The lazyges, wild, bold iders, scoured over the plains of the Danube and Theiss valleys on their unbroken horses, while their only dwellings were the waggons drawn by oxen in which they carried their wives and children. The subject Sarmatians, on the other hand, had wooden houses and villages, such as those enumerated by Ptolemy (c.); they fought more on foot than on horseback, and were daring seamen, all of which peculiarities were eminently characteristic of the ancient Slaves. (Schafarik, vol. i. p. 250.)

The Slaves often rose against their masters, who sought an alliance against them among the Victofali and Quadi. (Ammian. I. c.; Euseb. Vit. Constant. iv. 6.) The history of this obscure and remarkable warfare (A. D. 334) is given by Gibbon (c. xviii.; comp. Le Beau, Bas Empire, vol. i. p. 337; Manso, Leben Constantins, p. 195). In A. D. 357-359 a new war broke out, in which Constantius made a successful campaign, and received the title "Sarmaticus." (Gibbon, c. xix.; Le Beau, vol. ii. pp. 245-273.) In A. D. 471 two of their leaders, Benga and Babaï, were defeated before Singidunum (Belgrade) by Theodoric the Ostrogoth. (Jornand. de Reb. Get. 55; comp. Gibbon, c. xxxix.; Le Beau, vol. vii. p. 44.) The hordes of the Huns, Gepidae, and Goths broke the power of this wild people, whose descendants. however, concealed themselves in the desert districts of the Theiss till the arrival of the Magyars.

Another branch of the Sarmatian Iazyges were settled behind the Carpathians in Podlachia, and were known in history at the end of the 10th century of our era; it is probable that they were among

IBER. LIBERUS.]

IBE'RA, a city of Hispania Citerior, mentioned only by Livy, who gives no explicit account of its site, further than that it was near the Iberus (Ebro), whence it took its name; but, from the connection of the narrative, we may safely infer that it was not far from the sea. At the time referred to, namely, in the Second Punic War, it was the wealthiest city in those parts. (Liv. xxiii. 28.) The manner in which Livy mentions it seems also to warrant the conclusion that it was still well known under Augustus. Two coins are extant, one with the epigraph MUN. HIBERA JULIA on the one side, and ILERCAVONIA on the other; and the other with the head of Tiberius on the obverse, and on the reverse the epigraph M. H. J. ILERCAVONIA; whence it appears to have been made a municipium by Julius, or by Augustus in his honour, and to have been situated in the territory of the ILERCAONES. The addition DERT. on the latter of these coins led Harduin to identify the place with Dertosa, the site of which, however, on the left bank of the river, does not agree with the probable position of Ibera. Florez supposes the allusion to be to a treaty between Ibera and Dertosa. The ships with spread sails on both coins, indicate its maritime site, which modern geographers seek on the S. side of the delta of the Ebro, at S. Carlos de la Rapita, near Amposta. Its decay is easily accounted for by its lying out of the great high road, amidst the malaria of the riverdelta, and in a position where its port would be choked by the alluvial deposits of the Ebro. It seems probable that the port is now represented by the Salinas, or lagoon, called Puerto de los Alfaques, which signifies Port of the Jaws, i. e. of the river. (Plin. iii. 3. s. 4; Harduin, ad loc.; Marca, Hisp. ii. 8; Florez, Med. de Esp. vol. ii. p. 453; Sestini,

no affinity either in language or descent, they have | lation of NE. Spain was originally Celtic [HISan old version of the Bible into their language. The structure of this language has been studied by Adelung (Mithridat. vol. i. pp. 430, foll.) and other modern philologers, among whom may be mentioned Brosset, the author of several learned memoirs on the Georgian grammar and language: Klaproth, also, has given a long vocabulary of it, in his Asia Polyglotta.